The ‘voice’ of Internet

March 5, 2009 — Tee Emm

ISPAK – or anything similar – is badly needed today for fixing the current content-meddling activities of PTA.

Unfortunately, with the demise of conventional ISPs and the rise of voice-driven telcos as the new-age ISPs, somewhere in between, we left out the platform that could address ‘Internet industry issues’ as its prime focus.

Today, we have functional LDI industry groups (and the celluar voice probably doesn’t need any grouping as there are too few players to have communication problems) but we are short of an Internet industry group.

The ISPAK of yesteryears first rose from Karachi with Cybernet a major financial and moral driver and active participation from others and a parallel version blossomed in North and both delivered tremendous value and achieved major milestones. The Internet user had a very distinct voice in the name of this (these?) bodies. However, today the platform probably lacks the participation, the passion and the investment that it deserves (barring a few souls that had been delivering consistently without any break such as Wahaj sb et al).

As Internet and broadband penetration increases in Pakistan in the coming days (hopefully!), we will move from a connectivity hunger to full-functionality hunger. And the issues will get more complex. The only way of addressing this is to encourage and urge the players to invest time and money in an industry platform that can potentially address these challenges lurking around the corner. I make a passionate appeal to all who have anything to do Internet to come forward and increase their participation in ISPAK and make it the voice of the ordinary Internet user.